plied from the Utica State Hospital, while from the Rochester State Hospital are shipped the different grades of soaps required.

In all these various activities, as well as in hundreds of minor ways, patients are profitably employed to their great mental and physical benefit.

The Commission strongly urges the Legislature to provide sufficient funds to construct and equip at the Hudson River State Hospital or at some other hospital with equally satisfactory distributing facilities, a branch for the manufacture of furniture including settees, lounges, chairs of all descriptions, desks, tables, shelving and innumerable other kinds of furniture required for State hospital use, including all sash and doors for new hospital buildings throughout the State. It believes that with proper supervision a considerable number of convalescent patients, cabinet makers and general wood workers could be transferred from other hospitals to assist the paid force of employees and that considerable economies could thus be effected. The excellence and durability of the furniture now being manufactured for its own use by the Hudson River State Hospital gives ample assurance of the grades that can be provided.

At other institutions if funds are forthcoming all tin, copper and other metal ware could be manufactured with positive economies. The Commission could add to this list other manufacturing lines were it not for the fact that appropriations for the mere up-keep of ward buildings are not in sight and that it is loath to submit entirely new propositions in the face of the greater urgency of these current needs.

The following tabulation shows the value of the articles manufactured at the various hospitals during the fiscal year ending September 30, 1914:

Utica

Willard

Hudson River

Middletown

Buffalo...

Binghamton

St. Lawrence

Value of manufac

tured articles

$13,800 00 23,770 00 31,777 80

9,500 00

9,204 21

20,000 00

35,961 24

The report of the inspector of industries and manufactures will be found on page 233.

STATE HOSPITAL BULLETIN

This publication, which may be regarded as an index of the scientific progress of the medical men in the State hospitals, has been maintained at its usual high standard during the year. Reference to its table of contents will indicate the original character of the work done in psychiatry by these physicians, most of whom have obtained special training under Dr. Meyer and his successor, Dr. Hoch, at the Psychiatric Institute. The reports of the research work of these assistants cannot fail to stimulate to the utmost every one of the younger hospital appointees. Of extraordinary value are the reviews made by Drs. Hoch, Kirby and others of the studies of foreign psychiatrists, notably Kraepelin, Freud and Jung of dementia praecox and conditions allied thereto.

The proceedings of the hospital quarterly conferences, including reports on special questions of administration, are also fully reviewed in the Bulletin. A feature of special value is the publication of the proceedings of inter-hospital conferences under the supervision of Director Hoch, which are attended principally by assistant physicians and at which many contributions of permanent value have been made.

QUARTERLY CONFERENCES

As the statute provides, quarterly conferences have been held during the year under the direction of the Commission which have been attended by State hospital managers and superinten

dents, by the director of the Psychiatric Institute, and, on invitation, by representatives of other departments whose official duties touch at certain points those of this Commission, among others, the Department of Efficiency and Economy, the Agricultural Department and the Civil Service Commission.

The first conference of the year was held at the Commission's office, November 25, 1913. Superintendent Hurd reported the failure of the bill providing for the Officers' Retirement Fund, through opposition by the Civil Service Reform Association after the bill had passed the Legislature and was under consideration. by Governor Sulzer. The Association's objections were based upon the belief that the fund as established in the bill would not prove self-sustaining; in other words, that it would ultimately require contributions from State funds to maintain entire solvency.

Superintendent Smith, from the committee on the standardization of supplies, reported progress, gave some details of the work done by the committee, and was granted further time for the preparation of his final report.

The most important question before the November conference was the report of the committee on after-care and out-patient departments for the insane, which recommended that each superintendent detail a physician to supervise the work of individual hospitals in this regard and that a nurse or social worker be employed or detailed to assist; also that physicians and others living in the neighborhood of hospitals and who are interested in the health of the public be requested to bring to the attention of the State hospital physician specially detailed for this work, such mental cases as might need advice. A further recommendation was that the present volunteer after-care committees now attached to a number of hospitals be continued and that the individuals who compose these committees be made after-care advisers to the State hospitals.

At the February conference a valuable paper was submitted by Superintendent Hutchings on heating and ventilating from a physician's point of view, at the close of which Mr. Quinn, Executive Auditor, addressed the conference urging the adoption of new coal specifications on a B. T. U. basis and expressing the